1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to orthopaedic prostheses and, more particularly, to femoral prosthetic components with enhanced patello-femoral articulation characteristics.
2. Description of the Related Art
Orthopaedic prostheses are commonly utilized to repair and/or replace damaged bone and tissue in the human body. For example, a knee prosthesis may include a femoral component which replaces the articular surface of one or both of the natural femoral condyles, and/or the natural femoral sulcus. The femoral sulcus (also referred to as a patellar or trochlear groove) articulates with the patella during flexion and extension of the knee.
In some partial knee arthroplasty (PKA) procedures, natural bone may only be resected in the area of the patellar groove, and a prosthetic femoral sulcus component may be inserted in place of the resected bone for articulation with a natural or prosthetic patella. In a total knee arthroplasty (TKA) procedure, anterior, distal, and posterior portions of the natural femur are resected. A knee prosthesis including distal and posterior condyles, joined together by an anterior patellar flange, is then installed in place of the resected bone. In a TKA procedure, the patellar flange includes a prosthetic patellar groove.
A common goal of PKA and TKA procedures is to reproduce natural knee kinematics using the associated prosthetic components and, more generally, to produce kinematic characteristics of the knee prosthesis that promote favorable patient outcomes including minimized pain, enhanced biomechanical efficiency, reproduction of intact knee Patello-Femoral (PF) and Tibio-Femoral (TF) kinematics, short recovery times, decreased risk of joint subluxation, and long prosthetic component surface lives. To these ends, substantial design efforts have focused on providing prosthetic components which account for differences in natural bone structure and joint kinematics among various patient groups, such as gender, ethnicity, patient size, and the like. Other considerations which figure into the design and function of prosthetic knee components include balancing of soft tissue (i.e., ligaments, tendons and the like) near the prosthetic components, special articulation characteristics of the knee such as internal/external rotation and femoral lateral rollback, and hyperextension and deep flexion considerations, for example.
Design efforts have included producing “asymmetric” femoral components for knee prostheses, in which a particular asymmetry of the component seeks to provide enhanced articular PF and TF characteristics. With respect to a patellar groove of such asymmetric components, a groove angled laterally upward with respect to a femoral mid-plane axis has previously been employed.